


Ghost in Sunlight

by Anonymous



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: Gen, Kidfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-09
Updated: 2008-11-09
Packaged: 2017-10-02 02:49:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things happen in the dark; others in sunlight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost in Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> Original characters's names are all from Jane Austen, Sense &amp; Sensibility and Mansfield Park. For [Berne](http://www.ragnell.org/berne).

There was one thing to be said for the Naval assignment in the Caribbean, James Norrington thought, leaning back in his chair; the near-constant perfect weather. The sun here was a palpable presence; Helios himself seemed sometimes to have just vanished round the corner, and even the storms had a glorious beauty to them.

It was a distinct pleasure to _expect_ sunshine, and he never grew tired of it. "Sir?"

"Come in, Lieutenant," he said, taking up his quill again. Gillette's report held nothing surprising within it—a small slave revolt, easily put down; a few reports of vandalised shopfronts (drunken apprentices, no doubt); and a list of stores which had been in service too long to remain so for much longer. He signed what needed to be signed, initialed what needed to be initialed, and sealed what needed to be sealed. "Will that be all, then?" he asked, handing the sheaf back to Gillette.

"Officially, yes, sir."

Oh, _God_. Nothing good ever came of anything unofficial, Norrington had decided, but he could not well refuse to hear Gillette out. The room, as airy as stone walls could make it, felt suddenly more gloomy—perhaps a cloud had passed before the sun. "And unofficially?" he asked, arching a brow.

"Well, sir," Gillette began, shuffling his feet, "it was All Hallow's Eve last night, and the men you assigned to patrol the docks—"

"Dashwood, Willoughby, and Ferrars, yes," Norrington broke in.

"Yes, sir. Steadier men you'd not hope to find, but they swear they heard dragging chains below the docks."

"What of it?" Norrington demanded. Of course there were chains there; having a decent blacksmith about meant that the Navy did not have to rely solely on rope, which rotted too quickly for the Commodore's liking in the Caribbean damp, and Norrington had begun experimenting with mooring some of the frigates with thick-links. After the _Elinor_ had nearly capsized in the hurricane last winter, he wanted to find a way of securing the fleet no matter what the storm.

"Chains dragging, sir, as when a man's walking to the gallows still cuffed," Gillette said.

"Oh, for the love of—" Norrington mumbled. Ever since the debacle on the _Interceptor_ two years before, some of his men were prone to sudden attacks of conscience; other, flights of fancy. While Norrington fancied himself not unsympathetic to the shock of undead pirates, he did mind when it interfered with a man's duty, and he mentally added Dashwood, Willoughby, and Ferrars' names to the latter list, and drummed his fingers on the table.

"Yes, sir."

"Is there anything _else_?"

"No, sir."

"Very well, then. Dismissed, Lieutenant." He dismissed the matter from his mind as easily, and Gillette closed the door behind him.

* * *

"You'll be all right with Jack?" Will Turner asked, as he brushed a loose strand of hair off his wife's temple. Jack himself cooed and began to gum his fingers. He had been christened John William, for St. John, on whose feast day he had been born, but in private, they never called him anything but Jack.

The boy bore an uncanny resemblance to his true namesake, having been born with a full head of black hair and eyes dark as stormclouds and quick as shorebirds—as well as a stubborn tendency never to shut up—for all that he'd not been born for a year and more since Captain Sparrow had tipped over the wall of the Fort. "I'll be fine," Elizabeth said, tugging Jack's hand out of his mouth, "don't drool, Jack, please—he is my son too, you know."

"I know," Will said. "It's just—he was so upset last night—I worry."

Elizabeth covered his fingers with her own, and the sunlight was not brighter than her smile. "Babies cry, Will," she reminded him. "Sometimes they cry for no reason. He'll have tired himself out, I'm sure, and sleep the afternoon away before tea."

"And will you rest yourself, then?" Will said.

"_Yes_, Will," his wife said impatiently. Whatever changes matrimony and motherhood had wrought in Elizabeth's character, patience with anyone beyond her son was not one of them. She no longer troubled herself with her hair, simply knotting behind her neck; and Will rather thought the last time she had even bothered with stays had been their wedding-day. He brooked no objection—the tiny curves and angles of Elizabeth's body, first a new country to explore, and then a metamorphosing landscape that changed under his gaze in the months before Jack's birth, were now more dramatic and visible (and accessible, the Jack Sparrow who had taken up permanent residence in his head murmured, with a leer Will himself would never make).

Jack had spent much of the night before sobbing, for no reason either Will or Elizabeth could tell. There had been no thunder to frighten him, and he did not share his parents' (justified, Will thought) wariness of moonlight. He had never been a fussy child, so his inconsolable wailing had startled both of them.

"I don't really have to go," Will began, and Elizabeth's eyes, dark shadows beneath, narrowed further from her squint into the morning sun.

"Yes, you do," she said firmly. "The Bertram boy's horse needs shoeing, you said it yourself, and you engaged to do so today. Besides, if you don't, I shall scream quite as loudly as Jack did. You're worse than my father for worrying."

"A higher compliment," Will said, grinning, "could hardly be imagined. If Jack ends half as well as you did—"

"The scandal of Port Royal? I should think not, and if Jack is _never_ kidnapped by pirates, I won't mind a bit. Off with you, and don't try to sweet-talk me."

Will sighed, but conceded, as he always did in inconsequentials, and leaned forward to brush his lips over the curve of her cheek and the new freckles there, the warm skin shifting as she smiled. Jack, caught between them, whimpered, and Will bent to kiss his forehead. "Sleep, son," he murmured, and Jack, as soothed as he ever was, cuddled into his mother's arms with a contented grizzle.

* * *

The waters of the Port Royal bay, shallow as it is, sparkle with a wonderful clarity when the day is clear; but the old man sitting on a crest of rock seemed to resent the liquid light that made the air almost visible. He had the look of a madman, but no one saw him, to remark on it.

He brushed sand off his feet, and wrung water out of clothes that looked not merely _wet_, but as though they had been _stitched_ sopping and had only absorbed more water through the doubtless years, perhaps decades, of use. The water disappeared in mid-air.

A length of iron chain, much corroded, lay in the sand next to the rock.

As the sun grew stronger, the man flinched away from the warmth and dug his fingers in the damp sand, almost like a babe seeking reassurance. The holes healed over as he brushed his hands against his leg. "Sun," he murmured, and squinted up at the blue arch of the sky. "Sunlight, and my son—"

He frowned, clearly confused, and kicked the rock. His cry, when nothing happened, was thin and reedy, almost the same as the shrieks of the birds now circling ahead. They veered away when their prey proved itself too active and big to attack as yet, but waited on the cliff-promontory nearby.

He scowled at the rock, and raked his fingers through his dripping hair, and they emerged tangled in seaweed. There was no call for him to remain sopping; the sun should have dried his skin at least, but there seemed to be no end to the dampness that pervaded him. A crab approached, and rapidly scuttered away.

"Will—" the man said, the single syllable mere babble, and reached for it, whether to kill or embrace could not be told.

The sands around him darkened and grew soft; the incoming tide came closer to the rock, and when a splash of water struck the man's face, he sighed, resigned. "Not for me, then," he said, and waded into the sea once again. The chain followed him, although the links had not been attached to any shackle.

In a moment, it was as though he had never been there at all—no footsteps, and even the rock was submerged. The birds had flown off, and the crab clacked its claws idly against a pebble.

The light sparkled on the water, and it was a beautiful day.


End file.
